This dark world and wide
by RubyWrites
Summary: Picking up where season 2 ended and following Clarke and Camp Jaha in the aftermath of the massacre at mount weather. Gradual Clarke x Bellamy. Open to suggestions as I've no firm plan for where this will go.
1. Chapter 1 - Clarke

Clarke wakes up screaming.

Her cries have an almost inhuman quality in the dark emptiness of her surroundings, and its only once she has pressed her hands tight to her ears that she realises the pain she's hearing is her own.

The dew-thick air clings to her skin, close and cold. For a fleeting moment the charred and broken bodies of her dreams still float before her eyes, but then the panic passes and the forest lurches into focus. Breathless, she remembers where she is. What she's done.

The depth of the gloom that presses in on all sides confronts her with how very alone she is now, and for one sharp second she considers returning to camp Jaha, returning to her people.

But President Wallace's words crush this thought before it is even fully formed. "I bear it so they don't have to". This mantra has become something of a talisman to her now, used to chase away her doubts and weakness. She made her choice and this, she believes, is all she has left to offer her people – a way to live free from the burden of what it took for them to survive.

Even though dawn is still a few hours away she sets about gently working the stiffness from her muscles and packing up her meagre camp – she knows from experience sleep won't come again this night.

It has been the same every night for 14 nights. 14 longs days since she turned her back on camp Jaha, since she made the decision she never wanted to make.

Her life since then has been distilled down to three simple tasks. Walking until she is too tired to think, eating as much as she can forage, and sleeping as much as her dreams allow.

As to where she is walking, her final destination seems so irrelevant that she still has yet to give it any real thought. Instead her direction is dictated by one thing and one thing only – the path that will take her as far away from Mount Weather as possible.

She walks until the physical exertion shouts down all other thought. She walks to keep herself from thinking about why she started walking in the first place. She walks to push their faces from her mind - Jasper, Monty, Raven, Octavia…her mother. She wonders if they will ever truly be able to understand why she did the things she did, why she became the person she is now.

Becoming this person has cost her everything. She feels completely and utterly used up. Her one small comfort is knowing that her people have Bellamy looking out for them, that she can count on him to keep them safe.

Thinking of him, their last interaction plays in her mind. That same forgiveness he offered her that she had once given to him.

If only it were that simple.


	2. Chapter 2 - Bellamy

Bellamy is beyond sleep. Staring down at the pile of maps, charts and memos before him he is both overcome and electrified. His days have become a blur of crisis talks, planning meetings, briefings and schedules; his mind tripping constantly over questions of food supply, housing, sanitation, communications, power supply, security and medicine. Their people - his people - are traumatized, their makeshift camp overflowing, and with the immediate threat of Mount Weather neutralized (he tries not to dwell on the realities of that word) the question of 'what now' looms large on the Arkers lips.

It was exhausting. He can't remember the last time he managed to steal more than an hour or two of sleep at a time. It is as if the burden of their task is pressing down to his very bones, his muscles and sinews a growing knot of anxiety. Every waking moment is filled with the knowledge that any mistake he makes will be answered with the lives of the people he is trying to protect.

And yet, under the layers of sweat and tension it is undeniable that something has ignited within him at the revelation that he matters. As brash, and bloody and harsh as this world had proved, he is alive with purpose in a way that he has never known before.

This is not power taken by force or bravado. Not the rule of anarchy he had for a short time wielded over the juvenile's. This is respect, hard won and genuine. He is needed here, people listen to him, they look to him to help them and sometimes, in uncharacteristic moments of optimism, he lets himself believe he can. Although he isn't quite able to articulate it within himself (even if he did have the time to dwell on such things) it was as if somewhere, between the heady jumps from janitor, to rebel, to prisoner, to council member, the person he might have become had he not been born into the station of servitude was emerging.

This change is perhaps most evident in his newfound proximity to Kane and Abby. So used to viewing the Ark authority as a predator to evade and outwit, for Bellamy to find himself now working within these same hierarchies feels like evidence that the axis of his life has shifted.

The so-called 'hero of Mount Weather', he is treated almost as Kane's equal in matters of camp law. He finds it hard to reconcile the man who now trusts him to arrange the guard rotas, to oversee the hunting missions - the man who confides in him - with the one who once declared him a prisoner and left him handcuffed to a pipe.

As for Abby, she offers him a cold respect, backing his expedited election to the council, giving his ideas and opinions equal weight to those of his seniors, yet all the while making it somehow obvious only to him that she holds him at least partially to blame for the loss of her daughter.

Clarke. Her absence at camp is almost a presence in itself. As abrasive as their relationship had sometimes been, she had always offered him something of a moral compass, a barometer against which he could check his own impulses. He is not sure when exactly the shift occurred that led him to place her opinion so highly, but in its absence he find that he is less sure of himself than he projects.

It bothers him too, to think of her out in this wild world alone and in pain, and while he could never in good conscience place that above the needs of their people, above his sister, occasionally it occurs to him that he could have chosen to go with her.

Not that he can do anything about this now other than to keep his word to her and take care of their people until she comes back.

If she comes back.

His immediate priority is making sure the camp is secure against any further attacks. They've heard nothing of the grounder army since their traitorous retreat over two weeks before, but Bellamy is not inclined to give the Commander the benefit of his trust after such a costly betrayal.

Food supply has also proved difficult to secure. His sister can always be relied on to capture an impressive haul, preferring to spend her days stalking the forest than trapped within the confines of camp, but too many of the guards are slow to adjust to the demands of the ground – their steps too heavy and their triggers too slow.

Beyond these immediate needs however is the much larger question of if Camp Jaha has the potential to become a permanent, sustainable home or if, once their people are healed, they will move on. Any time not spent addressing the daily crisis's of camp life Bellamy spends working with Kane and a small team of respected Arker citizens to try and answer that very question, analyzing ancient maps and raking over Lincoln's knowledge of grounder boundaries to try and locate a territory they might claim as their own.

It is these papers he finds himself straining over now. He is conflicted about the issue to say the least, and somewhat relieved that Abby has been very vocal in her objection to the idea of moving before the camp has ever really had the chance to become fully operational. She also maintains that Jaha could return any day with news of the city of light which might prove home to them all.

What she doesn't say is that Clarke is another prodigal she is hoping will return, and one that she won't leave without.

Staring now at the inky lines denoting the contours and quadrants of the land, Bellamy finds himself enacting his daily ritual of trying to guess which square might hold her current location. He reruns the calculations – Clarke is strong and could easily cover 15-20 miles in a day. With each day that passes the circumference of her possible position inches wider, an orbit he traces faintly on the paper each day. There is some unnamed comfort he draws from this, as if by tracking her he can encircle her within the protection of the camp.

Today his line is interrupted however by the appearance of a guard summoning him to communications. Raven is picking up a strange signal, and Kane wants him in attendance he is told. Frowning at the now crooked line he makes a half-hearted attempt to arrange the mass of documents before turning to follow the guard. Taking a parting glance at the map he mutters under his breath "may we meet again".


End file.
